One of them had mentioned the Iron Wolves.
The other had laughed and said, "Those old fools still think they owe everybody a favor."
Then the first man had answered, "They owe one to Daniel Morgan. If Hale knew what happened to him, he'd burn this entire county down."
Daniel Morgan was Caleb's father.
He had disappeared eleven months earlier.
And now Caleb believed that the only people who might know what had happened to him were the same people his mother had begged him never to approach.
He raised his shaking hand and knocked on the gate.
Nothing happened.
He knocked again, harder this time.
A minute passed.
Then the clubhouse door opened.
A man emerged beneath the overhang, wearing a black leather vest over a dark thermal shirt. He had a thick gray beard, weathered skin, and a scar that ran from the edge of his right eyebrow toward his temple. His arms were covered in faded tattoos, and his expression suggested that he had spent much of his life dealing with problems he would rather not discuss.
He looked at Caleb.
Then he looked at the rainwater pooling around the boy's bare feet.
"What are you doing out here, kid?"
Caleb opened his mouth, but no words came out.
The man stepped closer to the gate.
"You lost?"
Caleb shook his head.
"Then what do you want?"
The boy swallowed. His teeth were chattering so violently that he had to press them together before he could speak.
"I need to see Victor Hale."
The man's expression changed almost imperceptibly.
"Why?"
Caleb reached into his backpack and pulled out the bloodstained envelope.
"Because my father told me that if anything happened to him, I should find the man who rides with the wolves."
For several seconds, the rain was the only sound between them.
The biker stared at the envelope.
Then he looked at the boy's face again.
"What's your father's name?"
Caleb's eyes filled with tears.
"Daniel Morgan."
The man went completely still.
It was not the kind of reaction a stranger might have when hearing an ordinary name. It was the reaction of someone who had just heard a voice from a grave.
He reached for the gate and unlocked it.
"Come inside."
Caleb hesitated.
The biker noticed.
"My name's Mason Cole," he said. "I knew your father."
The boy's knees nearly gave way.
"You did?"
Mason looked toward the road beyond the gate before answering.
"Yeah, kid. I did."
He opened the gate wider.
"And if you've come here carrying something from Daniel Morgan, then I think we've got a lot to talk about."
Caleb stepped through.
He had taken no more than three steps when Mason caught him by the shoulder.
"Easy."
The boy looked up, frightened.
Mason loosened his grip immediately.
"You're shaking like a leaf. When did you last eat?"
"I don't know."
"Yesterday?"
Caleb stared at the ground.
"Maybe."
Mason's jaw tightened.
He removed his own heavy jacket and draped it around the boy's shoulders. It hung almost to Caleb's knees.
"All right," he said quietly. "Food first. Questions second."
He guided Caleb toward the clubhouse.
Neither of them noticed the dark SUV parked on a ridge overlooking the property.
Inside that vehicle, a man held a phone to his ear.
"He's there," he said.
A voice answered from the other end.
"Are you certain?"
"Positive. The boy went through the gate."
There was a pause.
"Then the situation has changed."
"What do you want me to do?"
The voice on the phone became colder.
"Nothing. Not yet. Let Hale make his decision. If the boy has told them anything, we'll know soon enough."
The call ended.
The SUV remained where it was, its engine running beneath the rain.
Inside the clubhouse, Caleb was beginning to understand that arriving at the Iron Wolves' headquarters might have been the easiest part of his night.
Mason led him through a hallway decorated with old photographs, motorcycle license plates, and newspaper clippings yellowed with age. The walls seemed to hold decades of stories. Some photographs showed smiling men standing beside motorcycles in front of mountain landscapes. Others showed groups of riders gathered around hospital beds, damaged houses, and Christmas trees surrounded by children.
Caleb noticed one photograph in particular.
It showed a younger Mason standing beside a tall man with dark hair and a broad smile. Both men wore Iron Wolves vests, and each had an arm around the other's shoulders.
Caleb stopped walking.
"That's my dad."
Mason turned.
He followed the boy's gaze to the photograph.
For a moment, the hard lines around his mouth softened.
"Yeah," he said. "That's Daniel."
"He looks different."
"That picture was taken a long time ago."
"How long?"
"Almost fifteen years."
Caleb studied the image.
His father looked about twenty-five, perhaps a little older. He was laughing at something outside the frame, his eyes bright and his expression completely unguarded.
Caleb remembered that laugh.
He remembered it from before the bills began arriving in red envelopes, before his mother stopped sleeping, before his father began taking late-night phone calls on the back porch.
He remembered a time when their house smelled of pancakes on Sunday mornings and his father would let him sit on the garage floor while he repaired an old motorcycle.
Then, gradually, those memories had become harder to reach.
His father had started working longer hours. His mother had begun locking the doors even during the day. Arguments erupted behind closed bedroom doors, followed by long silences that seemed worse than the shouting.
And then, one morning, his father had gone to work and never returned.
The police had called it a disappearance.
His mother had called it a tragedy.
But the last letter his father had left behind suggested that neither description told the whole truth.
"Was he a member?" Caleb asked.
Mason shook his head.
"Not officially."
"Then why is he wearing a vest?"
"Because he earned the right to wear it."
"What does that mean?"
Mason looked at him for a moment.
"It means your father did something for this club that most men wouldn't have had the courage to do."
Before Caleb could ask another question, a voice came from the end of the hallway.
"Mason?"
A large man stepped into view.
He was nearly six feet five inches tall, with a thick neck, a shaved head, and a beard that was almost entirely white. His black vest carried a patch bearing the Iron Wolves emblem: a gray wolf's head surrounded by a ring of silver lettering.